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ADDRESS OF HON. GEO. F. HOAR 

At iJte Organization of the Grant and Wilson. Club of Worcester, in Mechanics HaU, 
, August 13, 1812.— [Published by the Club.'] 



I cannot describe to you the sense of in- 
finite longing with which, as the sessiou of 
Congress wore away, I looked forward to a 
return to my home, to the practice of my 
profession, and the society of my children, 
hoping that I might leave to others the du- 
ties, the labors, the honors, and the prizes 
of this campaign. But the occasion does 
not permit any man who loves the Repub- 
lic, or is under any weight of obligation to 
the great party that saved and purified it, 
to consider any other question than how he 
may best serve their cause. 

This is the first presidential election in 
which every grown man in the Republic has 
been entitled to take a part. It is the first 
Bince 1660 in which every State may take a 
share. The process of restoration, not too 
iong delayed for the safety of the Republic, 
is at last complete. Every State is in its 
place, every senator's chair is full, every 
district enjoys its rightful representation. 

It is a time of general peace. The flag 
with its thirty-seven stars floats over every 
eea and is honored in every land. The most 
powerful and proudest monarchy of the 
Wesfi for the first time in her history, has 
apologized for a great wrong, and a tribunal 
now sits by the shores of the beautiful and 
lake of Geneva, before which we are 
holding her as a defendant to make atone- 
ment for her offence. In the East, Japan, 
& nation equal in population to ourselves, 
roused by the sound of our mighty footsteps 
from her barbarous sleep of ages, sits docile 
at our feet, learning civilization, manners, 
laws, religion. 

It is a time, also of general prosperity. 
In bpite of the war, in spite of the loss 
from the estimate of the value of the slaves, 
the valuation of the wealth of the nation 
has increased from sixteen thousand to 
twenty-nine thousand millions of dollars in 
ten years. The manufactures of the coun- 
try have increased in ten years from $1,- 
885.S<il,076 to 14,305,932,033. < >f this our 
own state and countv have their full share. 
Not, as in slave holding times, has the leg- 
islation of the general government been 
I by hatred or jealousy toward you. 



but every regulation of finance, tariff, cur- 
rency, taxation, has been in accordance 
with your general views and under the di- 
rection of your own chosen and trusted 
statesmen. I believe that no great indus- 
try of Massachusetts, or of Worcester, has 
reason to complain of any recent legisla- 
tion. 

Better than the statistics of wealth are 
the statistics of manhood. Every sieve has 
become a freeman, every freeman a citizen, 
every citizen has become a voter. 

Amid all this sunshine there is but one 
cloud which rises like an exhalation of 
blood where the rebellion lately went down. 

In this condition of things two great par- 
ties and a little one present themselves. 
They ask you to i hoose between Grant and 
Greelfey; between Wilson and Gratz Brown; 
between the candidates of the Republicans 
everywhere and the candidates of the Dem- 
ocracy. What is best for the Republic? 
To which shall we give our confidence ? 
We do not ask merely which makes the best 
promises, but whichshall be trusted to keep 
them. Which has done most to win for us 
these blessings ? "»\ hich will do most to con- 
tinue them ? 

I will detain you for a few moments only 
while I ask you whether the promises of 
1868 have not been kept? I think the 
promises made in the Chicago platform of 
1868 have been kept by the Republican 
party beyond even their own expectations. 

The Chicago platform of 1868 consisted 
of fourteen resolutions, declaring a policy 
in regard to six great subjects : 1. Equal 
rights and equal suffrage; 2. Payment of 
the public debt : 3. Reduction of taxation; 

4. Honesty and economy of administration; 

5. Encouraging immigration, especially op- 
position to the doctrin • of European gov- 
ernments that once a Bubject always a sub- 
ject : ti. Amnesty. 

Now I submit to yon, fellow citizens, 
without fear of contradiction, that in regard 
to each of th< se things, not only has the 
Republican party accomplished more than 
four years ;iL r " any of us dared to hope, but 
it has than any other 



M 



administration ever did, or tried to do. Iu 
these great particulars it will stand out con- 
spicuous and illustrious, a mighty land- 
mark iu history, I repeat, not only has the 
Republican party more than kept its pledges 
on all these great heads of legislation, each 
one as important as any ever dealt with by 
any administration before, but it has ac- 
complished in regard to each more than 
auy other administration, or auj r other gov- 
ernment on earth, ever hoped or tried to do. 

First, as to equal suffrage. What gov- 
ernment or administration ever bestowed 
on mankind a jewel precious as the 'fif- 
teenth amendment ? the last of the three 
great amendments to our constitution, stand- 
ing out brilliant and conspicuous in our 
history, and which have beeu well com- 
pared to three blaziug stars in the belt of 
Orion which give glory and splendor to the 
skies. You will I am sure agree with me 
that no other government has ever bestowed 
on mankind a booh like that. 

Next, as to payment of the public debt, 
honesty and economy of administration, 
and reduction of taxation. Listen to these 
figures, more eloquent than any figures of 
:. 1 would not shine in borrowed 
plumes. I take them from a recent speech 
of 3Ir. Dawes, whose service as chairman 
of appropriations and ways and means has 
made him probably the best authority in 
the country on this special theme. You 
will, I know, give full confidence to Mr. 
Dawes, never a blind follower of part v. a 
sharp, fearless, and I think sometimes a 
too hasty critic even of his friends. 

There has been paid of the public debt. 
$334,000,000. S; iviugcf annual interest. $22 !.- 
500,000; funded at lower rate of interest, 
$200,000,00*:: savin- of annual interest $28,- 
000,000. Currency broughl from 37 per 
cent, below par to 12. 

Taxes ana tariff duties by which 
000,000 levied have been repealed. !.\ 
itures less per bead than in 1860—1860, 
05 per head ; 1870, $1.64 per bead. 

Casb balanci - against collectors 1-10 of 1 
per cent. ; when « I at is collectable is paid 
in all but L-50th ol I per cent will nave been 
coll cted. 

Of the customs, out of $553,000,000 all 
28,000, or L-55 of one per cent, have 
in en i 

treasun r has been in ..w^t n | pears; 
has received and paid out fifty-five thous- 
and millions : lost but $55,000 one ten- 
thousandt b of I per cent. 

The defalcations, according to "Mr. 1 1 
well were, under Lino i 0,000, under 

d, $1,700,000, undi r Grant, $64,000. 
- >\ bat ■ ov< rnment on eartli i . a debt 

equal to the redui tion that has bei a made in 
out ? What government can show such re- 
duction oi tax* e in ;i \\ bat gov- 
ernment Buch economy ' and bonestv ; in 

■ \n>; will, I 



am sure, agree with me no government can 
make such a showiusr. 

The claim to hold then: subjects in per- 
petual allegiance, so long discussed, which 
European sovereigns have so strenuously 
maintained, has at last been yielded to the 
peaceful diplomacy of Gen. Grant. The 
American citizen of German or of British 
birth is hereafter to be subjected to no oth- 
er claim than those of his adopted country. 
Here, too, is an achievement better than we 
are promised which no other government 
and no other administration can match. 
The removal of this old claim of despotism. 
Which even the war of 1812 did not break 
clown, would in any other time have been 
enough of itself to have given renown to an 
administration; but the brilliancy of this 
exploit is hardly noticed amid the splendors 
of that of Grant. 

So, too, in the matter of amnesty has the 
administration not onlv exceeded the prom- 
ise of the platform, but exhibited a clem- 
ency unparalleled in history. This is a mat- 
ter much misunderstood, and 1 ou°-ht to 
explain it briefly. Many people suppose 
that large numbers of the rebels are still dis- 
franchised. The fact is otherwise. The 
elective franchise has been restored toevciy I 

I within the government, notwith- \ 
standing his share in the rebellion. But the 
constitution makes, as it ought, certain pro- 
visions as to qualification for office. It 
provides that no person under twenty-one 
shall hold office, that uone under twenty- 
live be a representative, none under thirty a 
senator, and no man of foreign birth or under 
thirty-rive be President. State constitutions 
and statutes contain many like provisions 
for the public safety. So the fourteenth 

Iraent declares that persons who hail 
taken an oath to support the constitution 
and th« reafter taken part in the rebellion! 
shall not bold office unless their disabilities] 
are removed byCongress by two-thirds vote] 
The offence supposes the addition of perjury 
to treason. Even then the exclusion from 
office is not absolute, but the party has only 
tisfy Congress that be has changed his 
mind ! So generous has Congress been thai 
there is no instance of the refusal of thl 
prayer of any person who has asked 
.Many thousands have ben pardoned bi 
name, and, at the last session, C 

d a law removing the dis bilities of all 

but a few individuals who had held Beats in 
two Congresses and left them to take part 
in the rebellion. England has always 
brought her rebels to the block or the -al- 
lows. Von know the bloody lateoi the UIM 
bappj but brave communists of France.., 
The tories of our revolution were exiled to 
foreign lands and their estates confiscate J 
Gen. Grant gave orders to our offices 
abroad, if any misguided rebel, found wan- 
dering and destitute in foreign Iands,desirei 
to return, to bring him home at the pubB 



lie charge. Surely here, too, no administra- 
tion or government in history ever equalled 
in clemency that of Gen. Grant. 

Such is the record of the past three years. 
So serves the Republic in peace the great 
captain who saved her in war. I do not 
•claim, of course, that these things were 
■clone by the President alone, any more than 
I claim that he took Yicksburg or Donelson 
or Henry, or conquered Lee alone. But as 
the army could not conquer without a com- 
petent general, no administration could be 
successful without a competent President. 
As the steadfast inflexible will, the unerring 
judgment, the unswerving purpose of Grant 
pervaded our vast armies as if they were 
the body of one man — so throughout the 
whole administration has the President been 
:a steady, constant, force in the right direc- 
tion. You will find all these great measures 
foreshadowed in the clear and simple mes- 
sages of the President. Sometimes he has 
been in advance of Congress and people. 
The ink was scarce dry on the record at the 
state department of the adoption of the 15th 
amendment by the last state, when the 
President sent in his message to Congress 
oirgiug them to go to the extent of their con- 
stitutional power in assisting the establish- 
ment of institutions of education in the 
states lately in rebellion. No man in 
Washington has taken deeper interest in the 
solution of the great problems which affect 
the welfare of labor. In the matter of re- 
form in the civil service, in removing the 
appointments as far as possible from pol- 
itics, he is far in advance of a majority 
of his own party and has no supporters 
elsewhere. 

Our distinguished fellow citizen, General 
Devens. quoted, some months since, in an 
address to his fellow soldiers, the descrip- 
tion of Oliver Cromwell, which Macaulay 

nts into tiie mouth of Milton : — 

"Wherefore you speak contemptibly of 
his parts, I kuow not ; but I suspect that 
you are not free from the error common to 
studious and speculative men. Because 
Oliver was an ungraceful orator, and never 
said, either in public or private, anything 
memorable, you will have it that he was of 
a mean capacity. Sure this is unjust. 
Many men have there been ignorant of 
rs, without wit. without eloquence, 
wiio yet had the wisdom to devise and the 
courage to perform that which they lacked 
»ge to explain. Some men often, in 
troubled times, have worked out the deliv- 
erance of nations and their own greatness, 
not by logic, not by rhetoric, hut by wari- 
ness in sueo* 88, by calmness in danger, by 
fierce ami stubborn resolution in all adver- 
sity. The hearts of men are their books, 
events are their tutors, great actious are 
their eloquence ; and such a one. in my 
judgment, was his late highness, who, if 
none were to treat his rnfully now 



who shook not at the souud of it while he 
lived, would, by very few, be mentioned 
otherwise than with reverence. His own 
deeds shall avouch him for a great states- 
man, a great soldier, a true lover of his 
country, a merciful and generous con- 
queror.'' 

The whole country recognizes the felicity 
of the comparison. Certainly no person 
since has more nearly fulfilled Miltons own 
portraiture of the great Puritan. 

"Our chief of men, who, through a cloud, 
Nor of war only, hut detractions rude. 
Guided by faith and matchless fortitude 
To peace and truth thy glorious way hast ploughed, 
And on the neck of crowned fortune proud 
Kast reared God's trophies and his work pursued." 

Yet much remains 
To conquer still : peace hath her victories, 
No less renowned than war. 

But the parallel goes no further. Crom- 
well usurped the supreme power and turned 
Parliament out of Westminster Hall by 
main force. Our soldier disbands his army 
and desists gracefully from urging his cher- 
ished measures when they do not meet the 
approbation of his fellow citizens. 

Against this great record of public service 
a^d public capacity our Democratic oppo- 
nents have no man in their own party to op- 
pose. They have, therefore, put in nomi- 
nation 'Air. Horace Greeley of New York. 

I have no desire to undervalue Mr. Gree- 
ley. He is entitled to the credit of having 
established and built up a large influential 
New York newspaper ; a difficult work re- 
quiring extraordinary business qualities. He 
has edited it ably, and has shown himself 
to be a man of generous sympathies. There 
are many men in America of whom we can 
say as much. But we are not now seeking 
to'bnild up a newspaper establishment, or a 
man to write editorials. We are looking for 
a man to be President of the United S; 
for the constitutional head of our armies in 
war; a man to suggest and execute great 
measures, and to select the men who 
administer the executive department of the 
government in peace. 

I believe Mr. Greeley to be unfit for this 
great office. He is unlit by his de< 
opinions. He is unfit by timidity and want 
of judgment as shown by his conduct in 
great public exigencies, lie is unlit as shown 
by his changing his opinions for the sake of 
the presidency, lie is until as easily 
ed in his public conduct by low personal 
considerations, lie is unlit for it ::- total- 
ly unable to form sound judgment as to 
character, and to discriminate between 
good men and bad. 

Mr. GreeleV is unlit by his declared opi- 
nions. 1 will convict him of disloyalty ti- 
the idea of 1 lie republic in the two great 
cardinal points of the right to but 
rebellion and the equal rights of the citizen. 

Mr. Greeley is disloyal to the republic be- 
cause he believes in the right ot 



'•Whenever any considerable section of 
Ibis Union shall really insist on getting out 
of it, we shall insist that they be allowed to 
go, and we feel assured that the North gen- 
erally cherishes a kindred determination. 
So let there be no babble about the ability 
of the cotton states to whip the North. If 
they will fight they must hunt up some 
other enemy, for Ave are not going to fight 
them. * * * If the people (not the 
swashy politicians) of the cotton states shall 
ever deliberately vote themselves out of the 
Union, we shall be in favor of letting them 
so in peace. Then who is to fight ? And 
what for T—N. Y. Tribune, Nov. 2, 1860. 

"As to secession, I have said repeatedly, 
and I here repeat, that if the people of the 
slave 6tates, or of the cotton states, really 
wish to get out of the Union, I am in favor 
of letting them out as soon as that result 
can be perfectly and constitutionally at- 
tained. * * If they will only be patient, 
not rush to seizing federal forts, arsenals, 
arms and 6ub-treasuries, but take first delib- 
erately a fair vote by ballot of their own 
citizens, not being coerced or inlimidated, 
and that vote shall indicate a settled resolve 
to get out of the Union, I will do all I can 
to help them out at an early day." — N. Y. 
Tribune, Jan, 14, 1801. 

"Mr. Garrett Davis, this tremendous civil 
war was dreaded aud deprecated by no one 
more than myself. I am one of the few 
northern men who, to avoid it, would have 
preferred to let the cotton states go in 
peace."— A. }'. Tribune, April 3, 1862. 

These are not the dreams of a theorist. 
They were uttered at a period in the history 
of the Republic when they had a terrible 
practical significance. Those little sen- 
tences cost hundreds of thousands of loyal 
lives. 

They turned the vote in the Georgia con- 
vention, where Robert Toombs read them 
to the majority against secession, to con- 
vince them that there would be no war. 
They came from the leading Republican pa- 
.• • of the North. They convinced the rebel 
that he would meet no resistance. They 
convinced the Unionist be would have no 
support. I have been told by many emin- 
ent Southerners that they opposed secession 
until those articles came out in the Tribune, 
satisfying them that they would get no sup- 
port in the North, but were to be left to 
th'-ir fate. 

Mr. Greeley is said by his supporters to 
be a man of great tenacity of purpose, main- 
taining his opinion against all opposition. 
Will you put this secessionist in the presi- 
dential chair ? What Union soldier with an 

empty sleeve, what lather who gave Ins son 
to liis country, will give his vote to the 

author ot those counsels ? 

Mr. Greeley is also disloyal to the idea of 

the Republic OD the other great cardinal 

■ t equality of civil rights of the citi- 



zen. Mr. Sumner declares this the most im- 
portant issue before the people, and I think 
he is right. I read to you from the New 
York Tribune of January 17, 1872, a re- 
markable c xtract from a speech delivered 
by Mr. Greeley to the colored men at 
Poughkeepsie : 

"I hope the time will come when our ed- 
ucational institutions and seminaries will 
be open to men of all races with a freedom,, 
with a hospitality which has never yet been 
enjoyed. * I trust the time will come when 
no man's color will exclude him from any 
church or any religious organization what- 
ever. But though that time should come, I 
am not at all sure that the colored race will 
not, as they do now as a rule, prefer their 
own society, and prefer to have churches; 
and seminaries and colleges of their own. 
Nor am I clear that this would not be a. 
wise choice. So then, I say, with regard 
to our common schools, where a rural dis- 
trict contains but 25 or 30 families, it is sim- 
ply impossible, where two or three of those 
are colored, to have separate schools ; and 
in those cases, to say that black children 
shall not go to school with white children is 
to say that they shall not have any school 
whatever. But in communities such a& 
these, while if I were a black man, 1 should 
not ask a separate school, yet I should still 
say if the whites chose to have separate 
schools I should not object to it. I should 
only ask that the schools for my children 
should be made as good, as sufficient, as- 
schools provided for other men's children. 
Then if the majority chose that the minor- 
ity should be educated in separate schools, 
I should say, 'Gentlemen, be it as you 
please; I have no choice in the matter.' A 
gentleman or lady never discusses the ques- 
tion, -Was it proper to refuse me an invi- 
tation to my neighbor's party?' He orsheac- 
cepts the fact and lets the reason take can' 
of itself. Precisely so with regard to relig- 
ious fraternity or associations for mainten- 
ance of divine worship. I would advise 
the colored man never to make a distinction, 
and never to refuse one. If the whites- 
choose that the blacks shall not be members- 
on equal terms of general congregations, -1 
should accept exclusive congregations, not 
as my choice, but as the choice oi the domi- 
nant race." 

This speech of Mr. Greeley was made at 
Poughkeepise, N. V-. May if.. 1872; after 
his nomination at Cincinnati, and while he 
was hoping and expecting the Democratic 

endorsement at Baltimore. The sentence I 
have read (Ayou is in my judgment com- 
pacted of treason against Republicanism, 
ft shows that the man, whatever truths he 
may at times have seen clearly, has not yet 
got rid of the old prejudice on which, slavery 
\va- based. He is speaking of the common 
s ibools, paid for from the common treasury, 
supported by a common tax ! Anything 



that recognizes inferiority of race there, 
reeognizes~it in the beginning of life. The 
policy of which Mr. Greeley is speaking is to 
teach the infant Republican at the public 
■charge distinctions founded on race. What 
would be thought of a law which should 
propose to shut out Baptist, or Catholic, or 
Uniyersalist children from the society of the 
•children of their fellow-citizens in the pub- 
lic school ? And what would be thought of 
the statesman who should counsel their par- 
ents to submit quietly to such degradation? 
What constitutes a state? ''Men who know 
their rights, and, knowing, dare maintain." 
Not so, says Mr. Greeley— "Leave your 
rights to the 'dominant race.'" The domi- 
nant race. No man here is so ignorant as not 
to know the meaning of that detestable 
word. It is from the same root as dominate, 
domineer, dominion, and the other phrases 
of Latin origin which express the hateful 
idea of mastership of man over man. There 
•can be no dominant race without a servile 
race, over whom it is dominant. There 
may be Democrats in this audience who are 
"willing to vote for the author of that sen- 
tence." But what old anti-slavery man, 
what free-soiler, what Republican ? 

Mr. Greeley is unfit for this great office, 
•as shown, by rashness, timidity and want of 
judgment in great public exigencies. Time 
will allow me to advert to but two proofs 
of this charge, but two so conspicuous that 
they ought alone to deprive hi in of all fu- 
ture claim to the confidence of his country- 
men. In July, 1861, with the same pre- 
sumption which now seeks to instruct our 
farmers in agriculture, he undertook to 
teach General Scott the art of war. Keep- 
ing at the head of his paper the motto "On 
to Richmond," taunting the military au- 
thorities with imbecility, imputing to Gen- 
eral Scott that in' was not earnest in a de- 
sire to put clown rebellion, he excited a 
public sentiment which made the forward 
movement a necessity. It is to his credit 
that he afterward confessed his terrible 
mistake. Here, again, thousands of loyal 
lives paid for his folly and presumption. 

Again, in the autumn of 1864, when the 
rebellion was driven to the wall, he under- 
took to put new hope into its despondent 
•chiefs by undertaking to substitute nego 
tiation for arms, expressing his willingness 
to pay the old slave owners for their slaves 
at the public charge. What disgrace and 
ignominy to the country had this counsel 
prevailed? Whether he has changed his 
mind in this particular I do not know. 

He is unfit for this great office, as shown 
by his changing his opinion for the sake of 
the Presidency. He now pretends to be in 
favor of the one term principle, a- a means 
•of defeating his competitor. But "m June, 
1871, in a public speech, he recommended 
the re-nomination of Gen. Grant, and 
avowed he would be better qualified for a 



second terra than a first. 

" Gen. Grant has never been defeated, 
and he never will be. 

" While asserting the right of every Re- 
publican to his untrammeled choice of a 
candidate for next President until a nomina- 
tion is made, I venture to suggest that Gen. 
Grant will be far better qualified for that 
momentous trust in 1872 than he was in 
1868."— Horace Greeley, speech on kth Janu- 
ary, 1871. 

He repeated the same doctrine as latelv a<? 
March, 11, 1871. In May 4, 1871, he stat- 
ed in his paper that he had received some 
thirty or forty letters requesting him to be a 
candidate for the presidency. From that 
time for several months, he advocated the 
one term principle, but declared that it 
would be his duty to support Gen. Grant, 
if nominated by the Republican party. 

"When a Republican national convention, 
fairly chosen alter free consultation and 
frank interchange of opinions, shall have 
nominated Republican candidates for Pres- 
ident and Vice President, we expect to urge 
all Republicans to give them a heart}', ef- 
fective support, whether they be or be not 
of those whose original preference has been 
gratified. Until that time Mr. Greeley will 
maintain the perfect and equal right of 
every Republican to indicate and justify his 
preference, whether it favor the incumbent 
or some other Republican." — Tribune, Aug. 
10, 1871. 

This was after everything which is now 
made an accusation against Grant had hap- 
pened. Especially did he defend the cop- 
duct of President Grant, in regard to San 
Domingo and the kuklux legislation. 

Mr. Greeley is also unfit for this great 
office, because he is easily affected in his 
public conduct by low personal consi 
tions of patronage and favor. 

There is a little pamphlet, published by 
the Union Republican Committee, entitled 
"The Greeiey Record," which I wish might 
be in the hands of every intelligent voter. 
It is Mr. Greeley's picture of himself. It 
consists of extracts from his writings, 
speeches and letters. What a disclosure of 
vanity and weakness, id' arrogance before 
the event and repentance afterward, of pet- 
ty personal ambitions, of meddling with 
things of which he is ignorant, of foolish 
and timid counsel those extracts contain. 
In one sentence he says "it seems to us un- 
wise in an editor ever to allow his name to 
go before the public as a candidate for any 
party nomination." Then he scolds that 
he has not been offered offices in reward of 
his party service, lie writes along letter 
to Gov. Seward in 18o4, in which he gives 
notice of the dissolution of what he calls 

••the firm of Seward, Weed and Greeley." 

There 18 not a word in it of principle, of 
public interest or public duty, but only 
complaint that this, that and the othei 



fice has not been given to him. It is in the 
-Btyle and tone of a New York ward room 
politician. Fancy our consternation and 
amazement if we should learn that any man 
whom we have been accustomed to respect 
(Gov. Andrew for example) had written 
such a production as that. I believe Mr. 
Sumner would have held his right band in 
a brazier of burning coals until it was 
burned to a stump before he would have 
put his name to such a document. Contrast 
Mr. Greeley's revelation of himself with his 
description of President Grant. 

"From the beginning to the end of that 
great struggle, Ulysses S. Grant rose through 
every grade known to our service. A poor, 
friendless, private citizen, he volunteered at 
the outset, and was chosen captain of a 
company. He was soon made Adjutant, 
then Colonel, then Brigadier-General, then 
Major-General, then Lieutenant-General, 
and finally General-in-Chief. Yet nobody 
ever heard of his asking for a better post. 
In every case of his promotion he took the 
position wherein he .was wanted. No one 
ever heard of his wanting a better one than 
he already had. 'Friend, come up higher,' 
was the mandate addressed to this lowly 
servant of the Republic — not that he wanted 
promotion, but that the country sorely 
needed the right man in the right place. He 
favored no 'policy' but the crushing out of 
the rebellion. He had no conception of 
duty that led him to regard tbe federal exec- 
utive with distrust or disfavor. In short, 
Grant quietly received his orders, and to 
the extent ot his ability, executed them. It 
will be the fault of the people if this species 
of generalship is not more common here- 
after."— 2 'rilrme, July 22d, 1868. 

You know, I suppose, the history of the 
efforts made to break up the corruptions in 
New York— corruptions bo vast that the 
thieves stole from the public treasury, not 
by thousands but by millions, and which 
were cited by our enemies the world over 
as their strongest argument against the 
principle of sell-government itself. No man 
supposes Mr. Greeley to be responsible for 

these things. It. has beer, said that he en- 

Ln some business adventure in com- 
pany with Tweed. But 1 am quite sure 
that an inquiry into the fact would acquit 
him of everything but imprudence in the 
e of his associates. Hut he is justly 
chargeable with letting his miserable jeal- 
mt patronage and the spoils of of - 
i< e prevent him from giving hearty and 
manly aid in correcting this great abuse. 
I read you his letter written during the 
Kiiiic New Yoik campaign of 1871, 
in answer to an application fronihis Repub- 
lican associati s to take his place in the ap- 
proaching battle. 

New Fork, April 9, 1871. 
. - Sir. — It gives me no pleasure to ad- 
I .on, and the committee of which you 



are the head, that I am obliged to decline- 
the part assigned to me by the state com- 
mittee in the proposed reorganization of the 
Republican party of our city. Had a little 
forbearance and consideration been evinced by 
the appointing power at Washington, I think- 
this might luvce been different. Yours, 
Horace Geeelet. 

Mr. Greeley has been tried in public office, 
once as a member of Congress for a short 
term, once as a member of the New York, 
constitutional convention. A weaker and 
more worthless member never took a seat in. 
either. 

Mr. Greeley is unfit for this great office,, 
as totally unable to form sound judgments 
as to character and discriminate between 
good men and bad. 

In support of this judgment, I cite thetes- 
timony of one who has known him long and 
intimately, and who is now one of his most 
influential supporters : 

"No persons more than his brethren of 
the press recognize his great worth, his 
large and varied abilities, and the vast obli- 
gations the country is under to him; but 
they object to his high protectionism, to the 
manner in which his nomination was se- 
cured, and to the miserable set of small and 
jobbing politicians that have so long and so 
thoroughly surrounded him, and influenced 
him alike strongly and perversely in much 
of his pohtical conduct." — Mr. Bowles (8. 
B,) in Springfield Republican, May 4, 1872. 

Before I leaye this contrast of the two 
candidates, I ought to advert for a moment 
to some personal charges which have been 
made against President Grant. 

The American people are surely too gen- 
erous and intelligent to give credence to- 
such accusations simply because they arc- 
made. Against every President they have 
been uttered with equal clamor. His de: 
tractors almost overcame the resolute spirit 
of Washington. They stung nearly to 
ness the sensitive and fiery John A< 
Jefferson, in letters now existing in this-, 
very city, addressed to his intimate friend,, 
the elder Levi Lincoln, complains bitterly 
of the same thing. John Quiney Adams 
was defeated when a candidate tor re-eli cl- 
iou, by the accounts of the extravagant and 
sumptuous furnishing of the large east 
room ai the White House, which, in fact, 
was not furnished at all, and when' good 
AI is. Adams used to hang her week's wash- 
ing. Calumny invaded the domestic ci 
Jackson, and did not spare his wife. Lin- 
coln was believed in a large section of the 
country to have the habits of a drunkard 
and the manners and appearance of a bab- 

boon. 

The Banie charge has been made against 
Gen. Grant. Of course i cannot say whether, 
in former years, in periods of discour- 
agement ami distress, he ever yielded to 
temptation. If did, I honor the- 



■will that shook off such a habit and made 
him what he is. This thing I do know, 
that having seen Gen. Grant personally, in 
business and in society, daytime and even- 
ing, having known intimately many persons 
who are his intimates, including several 
members of his cabinet, seeing constantly 
members of Congress, both friend and foe, 
I never heard any such charge from any 
one of them, and I do not think any one 
of them ever entertained such a belief. 
A constant attendant at church, always 
ready and constant at business, receiving at 
all hours of the day and evening; when 
driving out in society accompanied always 
by wife and children, it is simply impossi- 
ble the thing can be true. I have here one 
testimonial which ought to silence this 
charge forever. 

L»-t me read a brief extract from a speech 
of Mr. Burchard, the successor of Minister 
Washburne, who represents the Galena 
district, and is a near neighbor of Gen. 
Grant. Mr. Burchard is a man of the high- 
est character and intelligence, independent 
of party almost to a fault. He was address- 
ing the near neighbors of Grant in his own 
home, who knew his habits and character. 
The vice of drunkenness cannot be conceal- 
ed. It is like the ointment of the hand that 
bewrayeth itself. 

"They say Grant's personal habits inca- 
pacitate him for office. His habits were not 
very bad as a general in our armies — he 
was surely very successful for a man of bad 
habits. But that charge is wholly false. 
I iiave seen General Grant from day to day. 
between the first day of December and the 
eleventh day of June last. Daily from 10 
A. M. to 4 P. M., he was sitting in the 
President's room, receiving calls, and at- 
tending to the business of the government. 
1 am ashamed before you, some of you old 
neighbors of General Graut. and others 
who served with him and knew him in the 
. to refer to such a base calumny. But 
there arc silly old women and simple minded 
men who credulously believe partisan cari- 
catures are true life like pictu: 

• - Vou might as well make such a charge 
against one of your prominent bu 
men in Polo, who you all see, from day to 
day, regularly attending to his business af- 
I know that General Grant is not a 
drunkard ; I never saw him take a drink of 
liquor — never met a man that would t v 
that General Grant was in the habit of 
drinking spirituous liquors. It is a prepos- 
ciiarge and a foul slander. 

"lie is a simple hearted, plain, honest, no- 
ble man. He did his duty nobly as a General. 
He never spent his time plotting and try- 
ing to keep Sherman and his other generals 
down. He was not like McClellan, plotting 
to be President. No. In the White bouse 
he is the same plain, honest, earnest man, 
trying to do his duty faithfully, governing 



forty millions of people, and he is doing it 
really better than they thought he could. 
He is a stable, firm man, going 
plainly forward and doin * well all the time: 
not like Greeley, vacillating, changing, to- 
day Bhouting "On to Richmond," tomorrow 
sighing and negotiating for peace though it 
further dishearten the desponding and 
jeopardize the Union cause. But I cannot 
contrast Grant and Greeley: Greeley is the 
changing wind— Grant the enduring rock." 

He is charged also with neglecting the 
public business and with absence from the 
Beat of government. What branch of the 
public has been neglected ? What 

duty of the President has ever been left un- 
performed? The President retires from the 
scalding heats of Washington to a place by 
the seaside, eight hours distant by re.il. and 
in constant communication by telegraph. In 
days when there were neither, Washington 
spent weeks of his administration at Blount 
Vernon, five or six days distant from Phila- 
delphia, and took a long journey through 
New England.' John A.dams spenl seven 
months at one time at Braintree, conduct- 
ing the whole business of the presidency by 
correspondence. Jefferson was at home a 
considerable, though not an equal, time. 

He is charged also with nepotism, with 
putting his relations into office. 

Nine persons, relatives (J !' the President 
or his wife, are all that have held political 
office under Grant His father is postmas- 
ter in Kentucky, appointed by Andrew 
Johnson. What would have been said by 
his enemies if Giant, in the time of his own 
prosperity, had turned his old father out. 
Of the others, all but two were appointed 
in the ordinary way <n\ the recommenda- 
tion of the local representativi - as b lingthe 
choice of the neighborhood \vh -re they be- 
longed. Two only were the Pres 
personal choice, the marshal of the District 
of Columbia, and the minister to Gautemala, 
the President's cousin. 1 think it would 
have been bitter if the President had not 
made these app< , however. 

sustains confidential relations with him, and 
the other was hij "led. 

But the office of vie 
vast importance. It is the second office in 
the government. The vice president lias the 

IS where that body is 
equally divided. Hut. far more imp 
still, he is to succeed I icy in 

case it become vacant. His principles and 
character arc the safeguard of the Republic 
against the haza single life. Of 

fourteen Presidents, I re than 31 

percent — have died in office, two a natural 
death, one by i he hand of the assassin, That 
this may be attempted again is by no means 
an impossibility. 

1 have in my hand a newspaper called the 
. published at Lexington, Mo. It 



8 



is a paper which has been published several 
years. It is on excellent paper, good type, 
with large and prosperous circulation. Its 
publisher is said to have boasted that he was 
the tirst person to suggest the assassination 
of Lincoln. Some of Greeley's recent letters 
on politics are addressed to him. I find in 
this paper the following article : 

It is headed with the cut of a pistol and 
these words : 

A DBEEINGEE EESORT. 

"It, after the oppressed people of this 
country shall have done all in their power 
to prevent the re-election of tne cold- 
blooded, bribe-taking villain, Ulysees S. 
Tumblebug, he shall, by the use of corrupt 
means, re-install himself and his army of 
hungry, vampirical, egg-sucking, skillet- 
licking kin in office : 

"Then there still remains a hope, a last, 
but sure and final, resort, — the dernier re- 
sort. The Jewish high priest, Caiaphas, ex- 
pressed that last resort eighteen hundred 
years ago, in these beautiful and patriotic 
words: l It is expedient for us that on > man 
should die for the people, and that the wlwk 
nation perish 

This threat is made against Grant, not on 
account of the matter which Sumner charges, 
but these which he claims Mr. Greeley will 
do as well. 

Now e we as! I to take for this 

high office of the vice presidency, without 
e for whom you cannot vote for Mr. 
Greeley? 

lie is a cousin and intimate associate of 
Frank Blair, one of that famous Blair fam- 
ily whose characteristics you well know. 
He is a duelist — the hero of a noted duel be- 
fore the war. But also the evidence comes 
to us from bis own friends, in a shape that 
w( can . that he is a drunkard. ' loil 

1 should make this charge 
lightly, or make it at all on my own respon- 

. . 1 read from the Springfield /.' 
'iean of the 2d off-1 il month : 

"The mention, of his name calls up the 
fresh and therefore still vivid recollection 
of certain rec -m. discreditable performances 
at Cincinnati and New Haven; but it calls 
up little or nothing else. * * Brown is 
.t Kentucky gentleman. I te has deplorable 
weaknesses; witness Cincinnati and New 

Haven. lie is inlen el IBCiOUS, and 

he is liable to get drunk. So are a 
many other Kentucky gentlemen. * * 
With regard to the question of habit, per- 
haps we have said enough already. There 
isev< rj excuse to ben] man. He 

has been brought up in a Bociety whereto 
be abstinent is to be eccenl ric. He is ol a 
nigh-strung, nervous organization; like 
Lieutenant < Sassio, be ba ■> ioi and unhap- 
py brains for drinking. He knows his 
weakness and struggles with it maufully; 
bis intemperance is not an habitual, every- 
day affair like that of certain pillai s ol 



state whom wc might mention, but excep* 
tional and comparatively infrequent. Dur- 
ing his term of service in the Senate we 
believe he did not once, give occasion for a 
breath of scandal. But there is no excuse 
to be made for the candidate. If the cur- 
rent stories are true, he has been wanting 
to himself, to his frieuds, to the cause which 
lies so near his heart, to the high trust re- 
posed in him b\ r two great conventions of 
his countrymen. We have said, and we 
repeat, that he ought to go off the ticket, 
and retire from the canvass. It is the least 
and the only reparation that he can now 
make." 

Mr. Sumner, in his noble judgment on 
the impeachment of Andrew Johnson, said: 
"The speeches are a revelation of himself, 
not materially different from well known 
incidents ; but they serve to exhibit him in 
his true character. They were the utter- 
ances of a drunken man and yet it does not 
appear that he was drunk. The drunken- 
ness of Andrew Johnson, when he took the 
oath as Vice President, was not 'official.' 
but who will say it was not an impeachable 
offence ?" And yet, the leading newspaper 
which supports the Greeley ticket expresses 
the belief that Mr. Drown has, while a can- 
didate for your suffrages, committed this 
offence, which, if committed after his in- 
duction into office would, according to Mr. 
Sumner, be impeachable. Here then is your 
candidate for the vice presidency, whom 
you are asked to unite in supporting with 
Mr. Donan, who would recommend'. 1 
sassination of President Grant. A m 
of the Blair family, chiefly known to the 
country by his organization of the bolt in 
Missouri, whose "real object," Mr. Greeley 
declared, "was to hand over the state to the 
sham Democracy," and whose fruit was the 
election of Frank Blair to the Senate, whom 
Mr. ( ; ribes as" "a viol 

tile an I able adventurer;" a duelist, and ad- 
mitted by the Springfield .. . to te 
guilty of what Mr. Sumner says is an im- 
peachable offence, [f committed while hold- 
ing the office to which he aspire.-- : 

The nun who could vote for GratZ 

Brown, under the circumstances, could vote 

a second time for Andrew Johnson. Put 

in your vote for Gratz Brown, if you will; 
but, when you have done it, turn round to 
your children and tell them that tie ir fa- 
ther deems a duelist, and a drunkard a 
suitable person to be President of the Uni- 
ted States, in case the office become vacant. 
But this is far from being all; perhaps not 
even the worst of Gratz lb-own. 1 read 
from a description of Ilia couduct at the 

convention which nominated him, from the 

same leading supporter. 

" .Meantime Gov. Brown and his relative. 
Prank Blair, arrived, burning with personal 
disappointment, with mortified vanity, and 
plans of revenge upon men who, they sup- 



posed, had betrayed them. The result had 
its chief tinal impulse iu the abandonment 
of Gov. Brown of his allies of the central 
west, and his carrying over to Mr. Greeley 
the unnatural vo'es he had gathered for 
himself. Mr. Blair was upon the platform 
•during the final proceedings, and mad.' no 
concealment of his share in his transaction. 
Gov. Brown's conduct was natural enough 
to a man of over-weening vanity and pas- 
sionate nature. He felt that he had been 
betrayed. But he was not betrayed. He 
never had a chance for this nomination for 
the presidency, from the day the movement 
assumed national proportions. That he al- 
lowed himself to so misapprehend the truth, 
and misapprehending it, to take such re- 
venue, not only upon his personal friends 
and faithful servants: but upon his allies in 
the early history or this reform movement, 
and himself be the direct instrument of nom- 
inating a protection president by a con- 
vention which he himself called, upon a 
revenue reform platform, all constitues a 
■case of personal weakness and cruel injus- 
tice as well as political infidelity." 

This is a description by Mr. Bowles of 
his own candidate for the vice presidency. 
In this tempest of hatred and revenge the 
nomination was born which means reconcil- 
iation. 

The bolt which Mr. Brown organized in 
Missouri, Mr. Greeley himself declared, in 
his paper of Xov. 30,1870. "was predeter- 
mined," its "a pretext,— a sham." and "its 
real object to hand over the state to the 
sham Democracy." In the convention at 

uati, Mr. Brown has but repeated 
Liiuael f. 

■ rast with this record the life and 
services of Henry Wilson. We all know 
him through and through. "What 
.a life of labor! "What a life of ser- 
vice.' What a life of honor: From a 
humble day laborer at the shoemaker's 
beneii. he has become one of the leaders of 
the Senate. Passionately fond of knowl- 
edge, he has become, self-taught, perhaps 
the best informed man in the country in 
her political history. A passionate lover of 
liberty, he ranged himself early on the 
unpopular side, and, by his labor and organ- 
izing power, has done more than anyone 
man in the country to build up the great 
fparty that abolished slavery. Never rest- 
ing! never thinking anything done while 
aught remained to do in the service of free- 
dom, he has crowded into one life the la- 

if ten. Hardly' a populous locality in 
orth,that is not familiar witli his voice. 

mgressional labors have been equally 
great. Gen. Scott declared that, in the 
one short session of 1861, as chairman of 
the. committee on military affairs, he did 
than had been accomplished by all 
previous chairmen for twenty years. 
■"After the first Bull Run battle he returned 



to Massachusetts, and by his personal labors 
raised two thousand three hundred men. 
Among the numerous bills introduced by 
Henry Wilson was one to raise five hundred 
thousand men for three years to enforce the 
laws, one to increase the pay of private sol- 
diers, one to facilitate the discharge of disa- 
bled soldiers, one to improve the organiza- 
tion of the cavalry forces, one, a second 
bill, to increase the pay of soldiers. This 
bill caused an increase of five dollars per 
month. One to incorporate a national mili- 
tary and naval asylum for disabled officers 
and soldiers: one to accept, organize and 
arm colored men for military purposes, and 
to make free the mothers, wives and chil- 
dren of all colored soldiers, one providing 
that all colored persons should, on being 
mustered into the United State9 service, be- 
come free, one to incorporate a national 
freecinfau's bank. He introduced the bill 
which abolished slavery in the district of 
Columbia, and which became a law April 
16, 1862, thereby making 3000 slaves free 
forever and slavery forever impossible in 
the national capital. The bill to make col- 
ored persons a part of the militia, and to 
authorize the President to receive them into 
the military and naval service, and to make 
free the mothers, wives and children of all 
such persons, was introduced by Henry 
AVilson. and passed July 17, 1802." lie ad- 
vocated the emancipation ot the slaves of 
the south as far back as 1835. He intro- 
duced a provision, which became a law on 
the 21st of March, 1852, providing that per- 
sons of color in the district of Columbia 
should be subject to the same laws to which 
white, persons were subject; that they 
should be tried for offences against the laws 
in the same manner in which white persons 
are tried, and if convicted to be liable to the 
same penalty, and no other, to which white 
persons would be liable for the same offence. 
This act nullified the brutalizing, degrading 
and inhuman black code of the district, lie 
introduced innumerable bills securing to the 
soldiers their bounties, pensions, back pay 
and all other rights which they so dearly 
earned. In addition to his vast labors in 
Congress he traveled through the states ami 
delivered more than one hundred speeches 
in support of the war and in vindication of 
the anti-slavery policy of the government. 

"For thirty-two years he lias toiled in pub- 
lic life for the right, the culture and eleva- 
tion of all men, without distinction of race 
or color. When the amendment to the en- 
rolment act was pending in the house, it was 
so amended as to make colored men, 
whether tree or slave, a part of the national 
. and their masters were to receive a 
bounty when they should give freedom to 
slaves who might* In' drafted into the ser- 

imittee of conference Mr. 

Wilson moved that the slave- drafted into 
the service should be made free by the au- 



10 



thority of the government the moment they 
entered it. His motion was agreed to, it 
became the law of the land, and Gen. 
Palmer reported that in Kentucky alone 
more than twenty thousand slaves were 
made free by it. 

"Mr. Wilson introduced a bill which be- 
came a law, making the wives and children 
ot colored soldiers free, and Gen. Palmer, 
then commanding the United States forces 
in .Kentucky, in an official report, made six 
months after the passage of that act, esti- 
mated that 75,000 women and children were 
made free by it. Tens of thousands of the 
wives and children of such soldiers in the 
states of Delaware, Maryland, West Vir- 
ginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and Missouri 
were thus made free under Mr. Wilson's 
measures. Mr. Wilson introduced into the 
appropriation bill of 1864 a section provid- 
ing that who had been or who might be 
mustered into the military service sboidd 
receive the same uniform, clothing, arms, 
equipments, rations, medical attendance 
and pay as white soldiers. He reported 
from the committee of conference, to which 
had been referred the bill in relation to the 
freedmen's bureau, an entirely new bill, to 
establish in the war department a bureau 
for the relief of freedmen and refugee?, 
which became a law, under which that 
benificent instrumentality, the freedman's 
bureau, was organized. On Mr. Wilson's 
motion, the provision was adopted that the 
land sold for taxes in South Carolina should 
be divided into lots of forty acres each and 
sold at low rates, under which act many 
freedmen obtained homesteads. Mr. Wil- 
son introduced the bill abolishing peonage 
in New Mexico, the provision striking the 
word white from the militia law, and also 
the measure that in the reconstructed states. 
Mr. Wilson introduced in 1863 a bill, which 
became a law, incorporating an institution 
for the education of colored youth in the 
District of Columbia, the act incorporating 
the Howard University, and also the act to 
incorporate the Freedman's savings bank. 
Mr. Wilson also introduced many other 
measures in relation to slavery, and the 
rights of persons of color, either as inde- 
pendent measures, or as amendments to 
measures introduced by others." 

This list of his labors has been taken from 

the records by another hand. 

Add to all this that, though pour, amid 
vast opportunities, his hands have been free 
from the suspicion of a slain. Social and 
genial, travelling day and night, living for 
sixteen years in the temptations of Wash- 
ington, his simple and temperate life is one 
which you may well hold up for your child- 
ren's imitation. 

Such are the questions and such the can- 
didate-. Bui it is not the merits oi the can- 
06 that is to determine your 

You cannot, if you would, sepa- 
rate the candidate from his supporters. 



From the ranks of those who support hire* 
will the President select his cabinet and 
subordinates. Nearly one-third of the Sen- 
ate is to be elected within six months. Hie- 
triumph wull bring into the Senate, from 
every State where he is successful, men 
selected from the same ranks. The same 
ranks will close together in the choice of 
the entire House of Representatives. So* 
clearly is this understood by your oppo- 
nents, that Mr. Sumner's letter, nominally- 
addressed to a few colored men in Washing- 
ton, where they have no vote for President, 
was in fact so timed as to secure, if possible, 
the election of Zeb Vance to the Senate, — art 
uncompromising and unrepentant rebel,, 
who desired to "fill hell so full of Yankees 
that their feet would stick out of the win- 
dows;" and of eight Democratic representa- 
tives, one of them the brother of Vance, 
over the candidates of the colored men and! 
the loyal Rebublicans. Mr. Greeley, recon- 
sidering his purpose, wrote a letter of ac- 
ceptance in which he complained ot Gov. 
Vance's exclusion from the Senate, v> hen 
previously elected. 

Now, who are the men who make up the- 
party of Mr. Greeley, and whom his election 
would bring into power? I cannot better 
describe them than in the language of 3Ir. 
Sumner describing the party ot'Audrew.Tohn- 
sou: "Original partisans of slavery. North 
and South, habitual compromisers of great 
principles; maligners of the Declaration of 
Independence; politicians without heart; and 
a promiscuous company who at every sta-t 
of the battle have set their faces against 
equal rights — these are his allies. It is the 
troop of slavery with a few recruits." 

1 do not forget that in all this 1 am com- 
pelled to differ with one with whom for my 
whole political life hitherto it has been my 
pleasure to agree on all questionsof nation;'.) 
policy. I would not speak of him otherwise 
than with honor. The habits <^f a lifetime 
are too strong. I cannot name in publii 
the name of Charles Sumner and word- oi 
eulogy not spring, unbidden, to the 
He has been a brave, persistent, hones 
VOCate of liberty, lie has stood on a lofty 
height. He never has appealed to 
motive in the people, and has never, I am 
sure, been consciously guided by one him- 
self. Hut we cannot give up our judgment 

ever, to his. [f there is any one lesson to b< 

learned from this lite it is tin' les.-on 

dependence. Woe to that people who in 
grave public emergencies trust to an\ 
menl but their own. The people of VVorc< s- 
ter have delighted to act with Mr. Sumner 
since he made his first speech in 1848. Bu1 
they have followed their own convictions, 
not 3 ielded even to his authority. Sot 
you have been engaged in the warfare tor 
human liberty longer even than Mr. 

ner. You would have done the same thing 
even if he had never lived. You WOUKB 
have done the Bame thing if he had been cil 



11 



the other side. 

Mr. Sumner, in my judgment, in his re- 
cent speech and letters has done a great 
wrong to the President, has done a great 
wrong to you, and a greater wrong than all 
to himself He is bitterly estranged from 
the President. But we need not utterly 
condemn him, even if we rind him guilty of 
great injustice. Many notable instances 
have occurred in history of public men, 
alienated wholly from each other, while the 
world loves and" honors both. One instance 
is found in the career of an English .states- 
man, to whom Mr. Sumner bears no incon- 
siderable resemblance. I mean Edmund 
Burke. Mr. Sumner has the same fearless 
courage, the same vast scholarship, the same 
lofty eloquence, the same unconquerable 
and generous love of liberty. Yet Burke 
quarreled foolishly and bitterly Avith Fox. 
The generous Fox, with the tears streaming 
down his cheeks, begged that there might 
be no loss of friendship. Burke rejected 
his advances, and, at another time, is said 
by one biographer, to have spoken in a 
••scream of passion." Burke cruelly wronged 
his friend, while in their dissensions free- 
dom suffered. 

An instance even better known to } r ou is 
that of our own Hamilton and Adams. 
Their dissensions went so far as to destroy 
the supremacy of the federal party. It was 
only by one vote after a struggle of months, 
which threateped to rend the union itself in 
sunder, that the country escaped the danger 
of electing to the Presidency the traitor 
Aaron Burr, as the result of Hamilton's con- 
duct. The people love Hamilton, and' love 
and honor brave and honest old John Adams. 
Which was right in the original quarrel no- 
body now cares but their descendants. If 
Mr. Sumner shall succeed, less fortunate 
than Hamilton, lie will bring iuto power a 
whole congress of Aaron Burrs. 

lam not reluctant to submit to any can- 
did man the question, Do you rind in Mr. 
Sumner's speech the state of mind anxious 
to do justice to a great public servant, to 
the trusted candidate of the people of Mas- 
sachusetts, to which he owes his own hon- 
ors, nay, even strongest obligation of all to 
a generous mind — to the man whom he ac- 
counted his enemy? Fortunately there are 
some of Mr. Sumner's charges of which the 
American people have a means of knowl- 
edge better than his own. He charges (leu. 
Grant with being an egotist and a quarrel- 
er. As to t hi.- Gen. Grant passed an or- 
deal in the eye.-, of the American people on 
a lofty scene to which even the Senate 
chamber is obscure. 

Gen. Grant au egotist and a quarreller ? 

Do not the American people know better ? 

bave heard Mr. Greeley's testimony. 

There is no ordeal of the temper like the 

1 of military life. Every officer knows 

how hard it is to repress this; constant temp- 



tation. Yet Grant, of all our Generals, al- 
ways gives credit to others. If you are in 
his company, he will tell you of the deeds 
of Sheridan, of Sherman, of Meade, of Mc- 
Pherspn, but never of his own. 

I commend to Mr. Sumner the language 
of Lord Digby in his famous speech to tho 
English peers. 

"Let every man wipe his heart as he does- 
his eyes, when he would judge of a nice 
and subtle object. The eye, if it be pie- 
tinctured with any color is vitiated in its 
discerning. Beware of a bloodBhotten eye 
in judgment. Let every man purge his- 
heart clean of all passions. I know the 
great and wise body politic can have none, 
but I speak to individuals from the weak- 
ness I find in myself." — Lord. Digby 1 * £ 
for Strafford. 

Ought not Mr. Sumner to ask himself if 
he may not possibly be wrong ! Whether 
something has not distorted his vision and 
disturbed his judgment so that he cannot 
Bee things in their true relations? He de- 
clared iu the Senate that Mr. Stanton told 
him when on his deathbed that Gen. Grant 
was unfit for the presidency, and that in the 
last presidential canvass, while supporting 
the Republican party, he had never named 
the name of General Grant. Yet nothing 
is more certain as appears from the speeches 
themselves, than that Mr. Stanton many 
times praised Grant by name aud at length, 
eulogizing in the highest terms both his civil 
and military capacity. Stanton never told 
Mr. Sumner what he says he did, though, of 
course, Mr. Sumner believes it. Can he not 
himself see that some strong passion is 
unconsciously clouding his memory ? 

He charges the president with neglecting 
Mr. Douglass. Mr. Douglass himself de- 
nies the charge, and explains the circum- 
stance. Was not his eye here al.se> "pretmc- 
tured with some color and vitiated in its dis- 
cerning ?" 

He charges the president with being an 
"egotist aud aquareller." The whole coun- 
try knows the contrary. Here, too, will 
he not "beware of a bloodshotten eye in' 
judgment?" He alludes to, Grant's letter to 
the colored people of Washington at their 

meeting in favor of the civil rights bill, and 
calls it juggling and evasive. He quotes 
only the last sentence, and leaves out what 
precedes it, when' the president expressly 
States his regret that he "shall not he able 
to participate with you in person in your 
efforts to further the cause in which you 
are laboring." The cause in which they 

were laboring being the passage of the civil 
rights bill. 1 read you the whole letter : 
Executive Mansion, » 
Washington, D. C, May 9, 1872. J 
Gentlemen: 1 am in receipt of your 
invitation extended to me to attend 
a mass meeting to be held tor the 
purpose of aiding in securing civil 



12 



rights for the colored citizens of our 
■country. I regret that a previous engage- 
ment will detain me at the Executive Man- 
sion this evening, and that I shall not be 
able to participate with you iu person in 
your efforts to further the cause in which 
you are laboring. I beg to assure you, how- 
ever, that I sympathize most cordially iu 
any effort to secure for all our people, of 
whatever race, nativity, or color, the ex- 
ercise of those rights to which every citizen 
should be entitled. 

I am, very respectfully, 

U. S. Grant. 

Does not the heart which finds in that let- 
ter jusrgle or evasion need "to purge itself 
■clear of all passions?" 

Mr. Sumner greatly wrongs the President 
when he says "he never, but as a soldier, 
did anything against slavery, and never, at 
any time showed any sympathy with the 
colored race." Mr. Sumner is mistaken, as 
the people of the country know. President 
Grant's timely message, when Congress was 
in dissension, ensured the passage of the ku- 
klux bill, and saved thousands of humble 
homes from outrage and wrong at the hands 
of Mr. Sumner's present allies. The Presi- 
dent's message in behalf of education will 
do more practical good for the colored race 
than could ever be done by a wilderness of 
Horace Greeleys. 

Mr. Sumner also does a great wrong to 
you. He does you an infinite injustice when 
he Bays the convention at Philadelphia was 
"composed of delegates chosen largely un- 
der the influence of office holders, who as- 
sembled to sustain what is known as Grant- 
ism." Mr. Sumner had no right to say that. 
In saying it he is hurried by hi.- passion into 
an insult to Massachusetts and to you. 
Among the 3,500,000 Republican voters 
there was substantial unanimity. No other 
candidate was named but Mr. Colfax, who 
withdrew early in the canvass and wrote a 
letter declaring that the public will was un- 
mistakably for Grant; Did you act under 
tlie control of postmasters? What a respon- 
sibility for < ten. Pickett! 

.Mr. Sumner wrongs US all when lie 
charges those who differ with him with ha- 
tred to the South. Not an act, not a word 
of hatred has come from the victors in the 
recent struggle. All that the vanquished 
even complain id bas been done with .Mr. 

Sumner's lull approbation. The only ex- 
pressions of hale come from those with 
whom he is now acting. 

.Mr. Sumner also wrongs the people when 

lie says "the speeches praising Graul are by 
office holders and members of rings." 'i ou 

know better than Mi'. Sunnier from whose 

hearts come the praises which have followed 
tin' Ben icee of < ten. < Jrant 

He also wrongs the people when he de- 
clares that "if any valued friend separate 
from me now, it he place- a man 



above principles." The national Republican 
convention, when all Mr. Sumner's indict- 
ment was before the country, unanimously 
renominated the President. In that act the 
Republicans of Massachusetts took their 
full share. Mr. Sumner, therefore, means 
to impute to them that they place "a man 
above principles," or else to say to them 
that he does not value their friendship. 

Mr. Sumner also does infinite injustice to 
himself. In a moment of headstrong pas- 
sion with a few prominent Republicans from 
other states, every one of whom so far as I 
know them, has suffered some personal 
disappointment as to office or power, he dis- 
regards the judgment of Massachusetts and 
the will of her people. In whose friend- 
ship does he find an equivalent ? Not cer- 
tainly in Mr. Penton's, not certainly in Mr. 
Trumbull's, of whom he declared within 
two years in the Senate — "How r often have 
we been obliged to encounter his influence 
as we were seeking to lay the foundations 
of peace and reconciliation in this Republic ? 
How often has he shown his tenderness for 
the remains of the rebellion and refused to 
join us in trampling it out ? He has been 
the persisting enemy of the suffrage of the 
colored race," comparing him, in his record, 
to a sick man turning himself on an uneasy 
bed. Will he find it iu Mr. Schurz, who 
has voted steadily agaiust the civil rights 
bill, and every attempt to protect the col- 
ored man, in the Senate? Will he find it 
in Mr. Tipton, of whom we may perhaps 
say, as was said of Addington : — 

"Andb'it little though he meant, 
He nieiint that little well." 

[see that Mr. Davis says that "Achilles 
will not sulk in his tent." Alas for our 
Achilles ; he has drawn his sword and 
turned his blow at the leader of his own 
cause in the very midst of the battle, though 
wisdom herself pluck him by the locks and 
bid him forbear. 

Mr. Sumner says the President should 
never be re-elected, but the constitution is 
otherwise. The American people, in full- 
est consideration, have adopted a different 
policy. Mr. Sumner's argument seems to 
meto be based upon an assumption not 
creditable either to the virtue or the intelli- 
gence oi the country. His argument is that 
if the President desires are-election he will 

use unworthy means, such as the appoint- 
ment of bad men to office, to compass his 

end. But, surely, he does not claim that 
the road to a re-election is unworthy con- 
duct. Surely, the Republic, whose idea is 
confidence in the people, assumes that the 
President, ambitious of re-election, will gain 
his object best bv the highest and purest 
public' service. What has been our experi- 
ence? lias r single Presidenl held the office 

a second term whose re-election the Ameri- 
can people now regrel .- Mr. Simmer's the* 
ory would deprive us in times of great peril 



13 



and distress of the services of tried men, 
and compel us to rely on men new in the 
Presidential office. It would have deprived 
us of the second term of Washington and of 
the second term of Lincoln ; of the second 
term of Lincoln for whose re-election Mr. 
Sumner himself was a strenuous advocate. 

The one Presidential term theory comes 
to this : Mr. Greeley is opposed to the re- 
election of the President when he wants the 
office himself, and Mr. Sumner would have 
the constitution forbid the re-election of 
such a President as he does not like. 

3Ir. Sumner says this means reconciliation. 
Does it mean reconciliation ? Do the rebels 
of the South take Mr. Greeley and the Cin- 
cinnati platform because they desire recon- 
ciliation for because, having exhausted 
every form of resistance, they are satisfied 
that they could not get a rebel and a Demo- 
crat ? Does anybody doubt that if the 
elections in New Hampshire, in Oregon, in 
Connecticut, had given reasonable promise 
of a Democratic victory, the overtures of 
Mr. Greeley, and the alliance of Mr. Sum- 
ner would have been spurned with con- 
tempt ? They seek to substitute Greeley 
for Grant today just as they would have 
been glad to substitute McClellan for Grant 
at the head of our armies during the "war. 
Undoubtedly they like Greeley's principles 
better than Grant's. They like the general- 
ship of Bull Pain better than the generalship 
of Yicksburg. They like his principle that 
States have a right to secede. They like 
his talk about a dominant race. They will 
accept reconciliation with him just so far as 
he will consent to be their tool iu revenging 
themselves on the men who subdued their 
rebellion and the men who deprived them 
of their slaves. 

One or two simple facts ought to settle 
the question in any candid mind. AYhen 
the civil rights bill was offered in the house, 
the Democrats used up the morning hour in 
filibustering during every Monday of the 
.session, thereby preventing a vote. 

"When the bill to aid education passed the 
house, distributing the proceeds of the pub- 
lic lands according tc illiteracy for the com- 
mon schools, every Democrat from the 
South but two voted to reject the boon. 

Several times during the session did the 
Democratic party vote against a declaration 
that the three great amendments were bind- 
ing; although just before adjournment some 
of them voted to accept them, they all voted 
against the legislation for their enforcement. 
Wherever the Democracy get power in the 
South, there the common school system 
goes down. 

To whom are these men reconciled? Not 
to General Grant. They hide him because 
he saved the Republic. ' They hate him be- 
cause he put down the Ku-Klux, although 
in both he but did his dutv to his country, 
and executed the will of the people. Their 



speeches and their presses are filled with ex 
presuons of hatred to us. Not to the color- 
ed men of the South, not to the loyal emi- 
grant from the North. For them they have 
the Ku-Klux Klan. Not even to Mr. Sum- 
ner. The Richmond E/ujuirerhas declared, 
since Mr. Sumner's letter, that the people of 
the South despise Charles Sumner as they 
despise Cuffee. They may be reconciled to 
Horace Greeley, the man who believed in 
the right of secession under the constitution, 
the man who was for paying for the slaves, 
the man who bailed Jeff Davis.the man who 
is for leaving the civil rights of the colored 
man to be determined by the dominant 
race. 

We offered them reconciliation iu 1860. 
They had only to submit quietly to an elect- 
ion under the constitution, by a majority of 
the American people. We offered them re- 
conciliation in 1868. They had only to let 
men live in peace in their dwellings. They 
now impose, as a condition of -reconcilia- 
tion, that we shall let them select our can- 
didate for the presidency. 

Will you tell me why any person who 
really favors reconciliation at the South 
should not vote for Gen. Grant ? 

One other consideration strikes me pretty 
forcibby. If the rebels of the South are re- 
conciled to the colored men : if the feelings 
which prompted them to buy ami sell and 
scourge the colored men have passed away 
and given place to love and kindness, why 
have not the colored men of the South, who 
live and work by their side, found it out ? 
How happeus that they hear of it first from 
Mr. Sumner, and don't believe it at that ? 

Mr. Sumner commends to you reconcilia- 
tion. Let him show a little willingness to 
be reconciled to President Grant. He can 
overlook the four years of bloody war, the 
death of half a million of his countrymen, 
the attempt on the life of the Republic, the 
holding millions of his countrymen iu slav- 
ery on the part of men who still justify 
and boast of thtur exploits, but he cannot 
forgive the maintaining Baez against hostil- 
ities from Hayti during a negotiation and 
the abandoned attempt to annex St. Domin- 
go. He can write a letter to aid the election 
of Zebulon Vance to the United States Sen- 
ate, who wanted to rill hell so full of Yan- 
kees that their feet would stick out ol the 
window and who never has repented of the 
utterance, but he cannot forgive President 
Grant for detailing a couple id buys from 

the army to aid him as Clerks at the White 
House. He can forgive the attempt to de- 
stroy the Union, the benignant mother of 
us all, but he cannot forgive the man who 
saved it. if he has put a tew of his kinsmen 
into office. And this is reconciliation. 

This nomination was not made b>r recon- 
ciliation by either convention. Two parties 
went to Cincinnati. One, honest and zeal- 
p "urer government 



14 



than earth affords. These returned baffled 
and disgusted to renew their support ot Gen. 
Grant. The others, represented by the 
Blairs and Gratz Brown of Missouri, by 
Fenton of New York, by McClure of Penn- 
sylvania, led and managed the meeting. 
They chose their candidate, not for reform, 
not for reconciliation, but as a man who 
•could be the tool of managing politicians. 

It is not so taken by the Democrats. They 
take it as a pill or an emetic. Gratz Brown, 
in his letter of acceptance, declares that 
neither party has changed its principles. 
Beck of Kentucky, a leading member of 
the house, declares, if he is correctly re- 
ported, that they take Greeley only as a 
means of overthrowing Grant. The Rich- 
mond Enquirer, a leading Democratic paper 
of the South, gives Mr. Sumner's letter, 
rejects his claim of reconciliation with con- 
tempt, and says that "the South despise 
Charles Sumner as they despise Cuffee." 
I read you from the speech of Representa- 
tive Golladay of Tennessee, when he says 
that Greeley will do what Seuter did in 
Tennessee. Remember that Senter's elec- 
tion in Tennessee deprived 150,000 children 
of public schools. 

'•Congressman E. J. Golladay of Tennes- 
see supports Greeley for the presidency, and 
has been telling his constituents why. We 
quote a few sentences from his speech. He 
told bis hearers that Greeley would do for 
Hie Democratic party what 'Gratz Brown 
did in Missouri, Senter in Tennessee, and 
Walker in Virginia. In accepting Greeley. 
the Democracy had not abandoned their 
principles, and, in adopting their platform, 
they had not ignored their record in the 
past. They recognized the thirteenth, 
fourteenth and fifteenth constitutional 
amendments as an existing fact, in the same 
sense that we recognize that Cain killed 
Abel, and that Judas betrayed Christ. The 
Democracy did not believe they were just. 
or constitutionally accepted, lie said Gree- 
ley best suited the South of any man in the 
nation. He had done more, and was wil- 
ling to do more, for her than any other man 
could. Greeley, at the outset of the war, 
was in favor Ot lettiug the 'wayward sisters 

depart in peace,' ami afterward went, sin- 
gle-handed and alone, to meet our commis- 
sioners in Canada to treat toi- peace. Not 

a Democrat in the North dared go with 
linn, or manifested any desire to go. lie 
was then in favor of paying the South for 

her Blaves, and I believe lie is Still. lb: 

went on Jeff. Davis's bond, while not a 

Northern 1 >emocrat s uch as lilted a 

finger lor hi.- release. He immediately ad- 
vocated universal amnesty, and opposed the 
execution of any Southern man lor treason. 
He had denqunced in bitterest terms the 
carpet baggers, and called ihcm the plun- 
derers of the South, lie i> one oi he 

.Mr. Sumner complained of the Senate 



that they violated parliamentary courtesy in 
not giving an investigation which ne moved 
to a committee of his friends, saying that 
they put out the child to a nurse who cared 
not for it. But he is now for putting out 
the new born babe of liberty to a nurse who 
would strangle it. 

The key-note of this whole movement is 
the renewal of the old, exploded doctrine of 
State rights. The words may vary but the 
tune is always the same. Sometimes the 
song is "no centralization," which means 
that the nation shall not protect loyal lives 
when the States fail. Sometimes it is 
' 'down with carpet-baggers," which means 
that the constitutional rights of citizens to 
dwell where they choose in the whole coun- 
try shall not be respected. 

Two hands stretch out to you. One is the 
hand of the southern loyalist, a true, honest 
hand, never raised in hatred, even against 
his bitterest foe. The other, stained with 
blood, stretches over a chas.n filled with the 
blood itself has shed. While the hand 
stretches over the chasm the voice utters 
nothing but threats aud curses. I am afraid 
the man who stretches bis hand over the 
chasm may possibly drag us into it. Mr. 
Sumner compares the Republican party to a 
life-boat, which swims upon every wave. 
The lite-boat, indeed, may be saved. The 
crew itself may not perish. I for one 
would not like to put to sea in a storm even 
in a life boat with Horace Greeley, as Ids 
friends describe him, for captain, aud 
Brown for second officer, to succeed to the 
helm. I think even a life-boat in some 
peril when a pirate ship is seeking to run 
her down. A pirate is never more da 
OUS than when she hoists false colors. But 
suppose the boat and the crew survive. 
what becomes of the lives which the 
has put forth to save'.-' While the men on 
board are quarreling, their sinking bri 
perish. 

Fellow citizens, how can von hesitate'.- is 
l hen- anything in the Republican record 
which any Republican would blot out? Is 
there anything in the Democratic 
which any honest Democrat would not wish 

to blot out ? How can you hesitate between 

the two candidates'.-' Greeley would have let 
the South go; Grant would have conquered 
them, (irecley encouraged the rebellion ; 
Grant destroyed it. Greeley would have 

paid the slave owners from the national 

treasury; Grant would educate the freed- 

• ucn. ( irecley. more than any one man in 
the country, is responsible tor Hull Kun : 
Grant tor Donelson, Henry, Vlcksburg, A.p- 
pomatox. Greeley would leave the colored 
man half a slave, dissuade him from assert- 
ing his own constitutional right, and rec >.:- 
nize a dominant race, as -till existing under 
the constitution ; Grant would enforce f< r 
bim those civil rights which every citizen 
ought to have, (irecley would denounce 



•centralism and return to the old mischiev- 
ous doctrine of state rights ; Grant would 
protect human rights by the strongest exer- 
tion of the national power. Greeley's 
friends are every rebel, every opponent of 
the war, every Tammany Democrat, every 
snau who is soured and dissatisfied; Grant's, 
the entire army of freedom, who have won 
her victories, by sea and laud, in war and 
in peace. 

It is a great thing to change the adminis- 
tration of the government. New issues, 
new questions, and new dangers, constantly, 
must arise. To which party will you trust 
the Republic? I have not spoken of your 
•business interests. What in your judgment, 
will become of them in the hands of the 
Democrats, with nothing but Horace Gree- 



ley for a restraint? Nothing but financial 
disaster can be the result. You must expect 
legislation hostile to all your interests; cap- 
ital must live under different laws: work- 
men must seek new occupations; our grow- 
ing cities and towns must lose their stim- 
ulus. Hatreds will survive and discords 
again spring up, with the revived power tor 
mischief of those who have hitherto caused 
them. 

On the other hand, under the same wise 
and safe legislation, you may hope for Ja 
more rapid growth, an ample return for 
capital, better reward for labor, a more as- 
sured quiet, a larger prosperity; and, under 
their beneficial influence, what is best and 
happiest yet, "a nobler liberty, a better 
friendship, a purer justice, a more lasting- 
brotherhood. " 



ANECDOTE OF GRAM. 

From tlie Worcester Evening Uazetfe, Aug. lGtli.] 
Mr. Hoar told an anecdote of Grant in his 
speech, the other night, which does not ap- 
pear in the published report, printed from 
(his manuscript. He remarked in introdu- 
cing it that he felt some hesitation for obvi- 
ous reasons in repeating the story, but there 
■would perhaps be no impropriety in relating 
to his friends and neighbors what had ap- 
peared to him a remarkable illustration of 
the modesty and generosity of Grant's char- 
acter. The anecdote is so fresh and inter- 
esting, that we take the liberty of reprodu- 
cing it in our columns; we can see no reason 
why it should be left buried till some anti- 
quarian, fifty years hence it maybe, digs it 
•out from the musty correspondence of 
somebody who happened to be present with 
Mr. Hoar on the occasion. 
Mr. Hoar related the story substantially 

■Hows : — 
"I had the honor a short time since of 
a at the house of a friend, then and 
row- a member of the Cabinet, in company 
with the President. There were aboul 
twenty guests, but they constituted peihaps 
the most distinguished assemblage it ever 
has been or ever will be my fortune to sec. 
Several members of the Cabinet, several of 
the most distinguished members of the Sen- 



ate, the Chief Justice of the United States. 
Generals Sherman and Sheridan, some offi- 
cers of high rank in the Navy, two or three 
eminent men of science, and perhaps the 
most famous poet of the country, Mr. 
James Russell Lowell, were of the company. 
Commodore Alden remarked, half in jest, 
to a gentleman who sat near .him 
tnat there was nothing he dis- 
liked more than a subordinate 
who always obeyed orders. 'What is that 
you arc saying, Commodore ?' said Presi- 
dent Grant, across the table. The Commo- 
dore repeated what he had said. 'There is 
a good deal of truth in what you say," said 
General Grant. 'One of the virtues of Gen- 
eral Sheridan was that he knew when to 
act without orders. Just before the sur- 
render of Lee, General Sheridan capture.! 
some despatches from which he learned 
that Lee had ordered his supplies to a cer- 
tain place. I was on the other side of the 
river, where he could nol gel communica- 
tion from me till the next morniug. Gen- 
eral Sherman pushed on at once without 
orders, got to the place fifteen minutes 
before the rebels and captured the sup- 
plies. After the surrender was concluded. 
the first thing General Lee asked me for 
was rations for his men. I issued to them 
the same provisions which Sheridan had 
captured. Now if Sheridan, as most men 
would have done, had waited for orders 
from me, Lee would have got off.' 1 listened 

with wonder to the generous modesty which 
before that brilliant company could remove 
one of the proudest laurels from h: 
brow to place it on the brow of Sheridan." 



V 

\ 



OFFICERS OF THE GRANT AND WILSON CLUK. 
OF WORCESTER, MASS. 



PRESIDENT. 

GEORGE P. HOAE. 



VICE 

-burv, 

'.. v. I 

M. Rico, 
Dickinson, 
pton, 
utt, 

Mowry Lapham, 
kr<l, 
. Joordan, 
C. B. M 

Hoe, 
<Jcorg<; 



PRESIDENTS. 

John 1». Baldwin. 

irdfon, 
ma, 
Wni. ]'. Merritield, 
S. Lincoln^ 

Bliss, 
I '. S. 

S . l : . I 

burn, 
J.l 
Tbi 

J.Wi 



■ CTIVE COMMIT!!. .. 

At Large. 
P, P. Goulding, A. a. Goodeli. 

, J. R. Torre\ , 
George S. Barton, s. M. Richardson. 

Leopold Strauss, 

con, Ward 5. E. S. Pike. 

•• 6. J. H. Walker, 
■ W iley, '• 7. Edwin Ames, 

•• 4. G. P. Kendrick, " 8. E. B. Stoddard 

SECRETARIES. 

>"..!:. I H. [,. Shumway. 

■I RER. 

J. B. Knox. 



W •■ r, Mats, 



